The New Theatre Restaurant’s staging of Neil Simon’s standout 1980s comedy, ‘Biloxi Blues,” delivers steady laughs against the backdrop of a writer-turned-private’s experiences during U.S. Army basic training. Peter Scolari – who skillfully wooed guffaws on TV’s “Bosom Buddies,” “Newhart,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” and in more recent years “Girls” – guest-stars as the story’s domineering yet idealistic drill sergeant. Let the chuckles begin.

Played for laughs, this large-cast staged reading of the classic 1968 science-fiction film, “Planet of the Apes,” is billed as a “parody for charity,” with proceeds benefitting AIDS Walk Kansas City. The original “Apes” flick was an imaginative slice of social commentary set on a far-flung world where primitive mute people were the slaves of superior talking apes. Actually, it was something of a comedy in itself, with such smart-aleck ape lines as: “You know the saying: Human see, human do.”

Marsha Warfield delivered countless laugh lines in the 1980s and ’90s as the acerbic bailiff on TV’s “Night Court” and the doctor on “Empty Nest.” But her coolest claim to comedy fame might have been as a writer and cast member of 1977’s fleeting but not forgotten “The Richard Pryor Show.” Like her mentor – the late, great Pryor – Warfield doesn’t shy away from controversy or slaying an audience with its own laughter.

Fifth-season “Last Comic Standing” winner Jon Reep continues to occupy an active stand-up comedy lane since his top-banana showing in 2007. The silly spoils have included joining the final-season cast of HBO’s hilarious yet poignant “East Bound and Down” and playing a stoner farmer (of course) in “Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay.” But before all that, Reep wasn’t exactly nobody: In 2004 he became the “Hemi Guy” in Dodge truck commercials.

The name of Aziz Ansari’s current stand-up comedy tour is “Road to Nowhere.” Although he’s has certainly been places – from the hit NBC series, “Parks and Rec,” to many other well-received TV and movie projects that came to a sudden halt last year following an allegation of sexual misconduct and subsequent media scrutiny. Ansari’s way back to the spotlight appears to be through his self-examining stand-up act. Where there’s humor – and honesty – there’s hope.

Jim Breuer originated the ridiculously bleating character of Goat Boy during his 1995-98 run on “Saturday Night Live.” Does he still grimace, twitch and let go with a nutso “baahh” during his stand-up comedy shows? Over and over, if it gets a laugh. And it does. Lately, Breuer has been keeping up his comedy chops as the offbeat concert opener for Metallica. Not “baahh-d!”

Steve Martin (“Well … Excuse … Me!”) and Martin Short (“I must say!”) are no longer so well known for their past stage-and-screen comedic catch phrases. Still, the longtime legendary comedians and real-life pals have more than managed to keep their old fans happy, while also gaining new admirers. They’re the pop-up comedy duo that no one asked for, yet few can resist. So charmingly zany, who’d even want to try?

Screen and stand-up comic Marlon Wayans is a member of the prodigious Wayans clan, whose talents emerged in the 1990-94 sketch-comedy TV series, “In Living Color.” Wayan’s movies include “White Chicks,” in which he impersonates one; and “Little Man,” where he plays a little person pretending to be a baby. If only he were more adventurous!

Once upon a time, Emo Phillips was perhaps the oddest stand-up the world had ever giggled at. The angular, mop-topped, stage-roving, partially disrobing, falsetto-voiced and wise-yet-childlike comic was an ironic alternative hit during the Reagan Era. Today, is he a museum piece or just what we need during the Trump Era? There’s only one way to find out.

Do you ever get the feeling that it’s funny man Adam Sandler’s world and the rest of us are just living in it? I’m guessing that Sandler does. Even if he doesn’t, then perhaps he should reconsider, because it looks like he’s having the time of his life as an actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician and who knows what else these days, even if a lot of people don’t call themselves fans. The good news for fans: The former “Saturday Night Live” star turned movie star hasn’t lost his love for performing standup filled with screwball stories and sing-alongs.

Treat your scheming side to the local premiere of the hit musical comedy, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” which incorporates a singularly effective gimmick: One actor portraying nine different characters. The plot of this 2014 Tony Award-winner for Best Musical is based on the 1949 British film, “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” and follows an industrious Englishman attempting to eliminate the eight relatives who precede him in inheriting an aristocratic title and fortune. How much longer can they stay breathing? The bodies and the laughs pile up fast.

Drag queen entertainer Katya is on her “Help Me, I’m Dying” comedy tour, delivering over-the-top stand-up and storytelling enlivened by videos and dance offerings. As seen on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Katya has no shortage of multi-dimensional characters to inhabit for your envelope-pushing enjoyment. Who wants to be the letter opener?

You know what isn’t weird? That “Weird Al” Yankovic is the most popular parodist in the history of popular song. Yankovic’s smart-aleck majesty and exceptional ear for mimicry are the creative keys to his decades of tunefully lampooning many of the music industry’s most iconic acts, including Michael Jackson (“Eat It”), Madonna (“Like a Surgeon”), Queen (“Another One Rides the Bus”), Nirvana (“Smells Like Nirvana”), Green Day (“Canadian Idiot”), Lady Gaga (“Perform This Way”) and Pharrell Williams (“Tacky”). Extra added attraction: Accordion solos!

Nick Offerman’s comic persona is that of a man’s man’s man’s man’s man – and that still might not be enough mans. Offerman’s matter-of-fact ultra-guy dwells in a stereotypically masculine phantasmagoria typified by such unalterably manly things as facial hair, red meat and chainsaws. As quick-witted as he is larger than life, Offerman’s career took off when he started playing the drolly macho boss on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” although his recent pseudo-saucy commercials with wife Megan Mullally (“Will and Grace”) for a streaming TV service may be as subversively funny as anything he’s ever done. That is, until he hits KC. It’s not like we don’t deserve your best, right, Nick?

Related Content

Kansas City is now the 31st largest metro area in the United States, dropping from 30th in 2017. New estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate the Austin, Texas, metro area surpassed Kansas City in 2018.

When Kansas-born actress and dancer Louise Brooks wanted to travel to New York City in 1922 at the age of 15, she could not go alone. She needed a chaperone.

Brooks' five-week trip is the basis of Lawrence novelist Laura Moriarty's 2012 book "The Chaperone," which has now been made into a movie of the same name. Moriarty was at the New York City premiere on March 25 and says it was exhilarating.